WHAT TO WATCH; Pursuing the Perfect Boom, Bang or Ping

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Published: April 21, 2006

FOR Joseph Pereira, a percussionist and timpanist in the New York Philharmonic, practicing rhythmic patterns on the timpani or melodic riffs on the xylophone is the easy part of his job.

His work also involves arduous, offbeat projects like searching for gongs and temple bells when the Philharmonic tours Asia or soaking imported Irish calfskins in the tub of his Upper East Side apartment to soften them up before stretching them over the circular hoops of the timpani.

Percussionists are constantly on the lookout for chimes, exotic cymbals, wood blocks: anything that might produce a particular sound or color called for by a composer. A few years ago, while visiting with his wife's family in Kentucky, Mr. Pereira went trolling through junkyards, where he found some brake drums that when struck with a mallet proved ideal for producing specific clanks and plinks in John Adams's ''On the Transmigration of Souls,'' a 9/11 memorial piece, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in music.

''I found everything I needed for that piece in the Kentucky junkyard,'' Mr. Pereira said recently, including brake drums for vehicles ranging from a Toyota compact to a Mack truck.

Like many percussionists and timpanists, Mr. Pereira makes sticks and mallets from scratch, and he also helps maintain the Philharmonic's timpani, commonly called kettledrums: those shiny copper basins fitted with calfskin or plastic tops. (Timpani produce different pitches through pedals or adjustable screws that stretch the tops.)

In percussion and timpani circles, Mr. Pereira is renowned for having won his prestigious post in 1998 at 23, while still in his second year in the master's program at the Juilliard School. Since 2004 Mr. Pereira, now 31, has been the acting principal timpanist, replacing his teacher and mentor Roland L. Kohloff, who died of cancer in February, at 71.

You can hear Mr. Pereira in action this afternoon and tomorrow evening, when Mstislav Rostropovich conducts the Philharmonic in a Shostakovich program that includes the Symphony No. 10, which has a notoriously difficult timpani part, especially in the exuberantly frenzied finale.

''A lot of my practicing is preparation,'' Mr. Pereira said during an interview in his studio at the Juilliard School, where he now holds the teaching post Mr. Kohloff once held. ''I usually come in to the Philharmonic early to make sure everything is working properly, to make sure I'm getting the right sounds and colors.''

Still, making things, especially drumsticks and mallets, eats up hours. And he never knows when he may chance on the perfect building material.

A couple of months ago Mr. Pereira, who loves to cook, was making dinner at home for some colleagues: beef braised with French wine. The wine, a newer make, came in bottles corked with plastic. Timpanists often use cork instead of wood on the inside of a mallet to soften the sound somewhat. ''So I thought, let's give this plastic a try,'' Mr. Pereira said. ''It wound up making a great pair of sticks.''

Ah, sticks. ''Once, I was in the gardening district in New York, and I bought a six-foot length of bamboo fence, because we use bamboo for the sticks,'' he said. ''You're lucky if you get five or six pairs out of that length of bamboo, because the sticks have to be straight, and the line of knots has to be even.''

He was in luck that time, getting his half-dozen pairs ''including these,'' he said, proudly holding up the sticks with the plastic-cork insides. ''These are perfect for the third movement of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.''

The Philharmonic recently appointed a new principal percussionist, so Mr. Pereira will return next season to the position for which he was hired: assistant principal timpanist and section percussionist.

The timpani are an instrumental class unto themselves. Percussionists play an array of drums, keyboard instruments, mallet instruments, triangles, gongs and whatnot, but timpanists are specialists. Mr. Pereira's job is the only one in orchestra that officially bridges two sections. Within the orchestral world, he is the equivalent of a pitcher who doubles as shortstop.

To his students Mr. Pereira has a dream job. If you are a violinist or a clarinetist, there are a number of ways you can make a living in music. If you are a percussionist or a timpanist, you want a post like Mr. Pereira's. What else is there?

How did he come to get this coveted job at such an early age?

Growing up on Long Island, Mr. Pereira took piano lessons but was drawn more to being a rock drummer. He did not see his first New York Philharmonic concert until his sophomore year in high school: a summer concert with Zubin Mehta conducting Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. ''That was the first time I saw Roland play,'' Mr. Pereira said.

His burgeoning interest in classical music inspired him to join the New York Youth Symphony. An epiphany came when the orchestra performed Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. ''That was the first piece for which I really looked at the entire score, beyond my part,'' he said. ''I remember having a tape of it and wearing it out.''